Here’s How the Next Two Atmospheric Rivers Will Affect California – the New York Times
![On January 31, 2020, a powerful atmospheric river arrived in the Pacific Northwest (Courtesy of CreditCredit...CIRA/CSU & NOAA via the RAMMB-CIRA Satellite Library).](https://coastalcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/2024-01-31-202401310510-202401311500_g18_fd_airmass_west-coast-ar-arrives_labels-798x449.gif)
A “Pineapple Express” hitting California through Thursday will set the stage for another week of unsettled weather across the state…
As Development Alters Greek Islands’ Nature and Culture, Locals Push Back – the New York Times
![The City of Fira, - Santorini, Greece - at Dusk © 2023 D Shrestha Ross](https://coastalcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/IMGP7845-798x449.jpg)
As a proliferation of pools threatens some water supplies and housing costs skyrocket, people of the Cycladic islands say the Aegean islands’ character is being lost to real-estate homogenization…“It’s very easy to talk about sustainable development, but all they actually do is approve new investments,” said Ioannis Spilanis, a former general secretary for island policy at Greece’s shipping ministry and now head of the Aegean Sustainable Tourism Observatory…
The Prescience of Octavia Butler
![Octavia E. Butler Tribute NYC, June 5, 2006 (by Houari B. CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED via Flickr).](https://coastalcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/1425624805_52a7b806ec_b-798x601.jpg)
The effects of climate change are reshaping America. Those with sufficient resources retreat inside protected communities. Those with even greater resources finance an exploratory Mars mission, presumably in an attempt to one day escape Earth’s destabilization. In the political realm, a populist presidential candidate denounces claims made by scientists, promising the electorate that he’s going to “return us to the glory, wealth, and order of the twentieth century.” This is life in 2024…Or at least it’s life in 2024 as imagined by the writer Octavia Butler 31 years ago…
The Visions of Octavia Butler | Interactive – the New York Times
![Quilt of Octavia Butler by Bisa Butler (no relation) at the National Portrait Gallery, November 28, 2023 (by romanlily CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED via Flickr)](https://coastalcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/53364922608_f9cfcf2249_k-e1705375815571-798x642.jpg)
(Octavia) Butler was not a climate scientist, a political pundit, or a Silicon Valley technologist…Somehow she knew this time would come. The smoke-choked air from fire gone wild, the cresting rivers and rising seas, the sweltering heat and receding lakes, the melting away of civil society and political stability, the light-year leaps in artificial intelligence—(she) foresaw them all…
Finding a Way Back to ‘Perfect Beach’ – the New York Times
![HIHWNMS - Beach View (by NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, Public Domain, via Flickr).](https://coastalcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/31138616400_91b2b00724_k-798x532.jpg)
On the northern coast of Puerto Rico — about an hour’s drive west of San Juan, off a wisp of a road threaded through dense green foliage — there exists a long, empty beach that has haunted my dreams for years. On Google Maps, it appears as Punta Caracoles Beach, but I have always thought of it as Perfect Beach…
A California Beach Town Is Desperate to Save Its Vanishing Sand – the New York Times
![Girl on the Jetty, Oceanside, California - April 18, 2009 (by Brian Auer CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED via Flickr).](https://coastalcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/3797989079_6a7d4d9e92_o-798x532.jpg)
Sea-level rise and man-made projects have left Oceanside with precious little beach space. That’s a problem if coastal life is part of your city’s identity…
‘No Space for Us’: Greeks Fight Beach Takeover by Pricey Sun Chairs – the New York Times
![Restaurants take over the coast in Santorini, Greece © 2023 Deepika Shrestha Ross](https://coastalcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/IMGP7643-798x528.jpg)
It is peak tourist season in Greece, and on the pristine Monastiri beach on the northern tip of Paros island, a phalanx of lounge chairs with red umbrellas covers the sand. At 70 euros for a pair of front-row seats near the crystalline waters, less than half were taken on a recent day, as Greeks and tourists alike who did not want to pay instead sheltered from the sun under nearby trees….
There Might Be Less Plastic in the Sea Than We Thought. But Read On – the New York Times
![Plastic input into the oceans: Despite knowledge of the role played by rivers, there are no global estimates of the amount of man-made debris reaching the ocean at river mouths. Therefore, of the estimated 4.8 to 12.7 million tonnes of litter which enter the marine environment in 2010 from land-based sources within a 50 km-wide coastal zone (Jambeck et al., 2015) Illustration by Maphoto/Riccardo Pravettoni, courtesy of GRID-Arendal CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 via https://www.grida.no/resources/6906).](https://coastalcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/31519203414_12f1147779_b-798x483.jpeg)
There’s less plastic pollution flowing into the ocean from land than scientists previously thought, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience.
The researchers estimated that about 500,000 metric tons of plastic end up in the ocean each year, with about half from land. The other half comes from the fishing industry in the form of nets, ropes, buoys and other equipment…
Opinion | Interactive: The Plan to Save New York From the Next Sandy Will Ruin the Waterfront. It Doesn’t Have To – the New York Times
![Animation illustrates the potential effects of anticipated sea level change to coastal communities by 2100 (Courtesy of US Army Corp of Engineers).](https://coastalcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/SLR_1-600.gif)
Last September, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers unveiled its proposal to protect the greater New York and New Jersey metro area from the next catastrophic flood. It is an epic plan that includes dozens of miles of floodwalls, levees and berms along the shoreline and 12 storm surge barriers — arrays of movable gates — across entrances to waterways throughout the region.
The plan is estimated to cost a staggering $52.6 billion. It’s by far the most expensive project ever proposed by the Corps.
The trouble is that despite its great ambitions, the Corps’s plan demonstrates the shortcomings of relying on massive shoreline structures for flood protection…